Welcoming Life With Cheers

Only two weeks ago, my daughter delivered a healthy 6-pound, 10-ounce baby boy! My wife, Kim, was in the delivery room, along with the baby's father, when the child was born. After the birth, Kim went to the waiting room of the hospital to tell the good news to anxious family members and friends. "We've got a boy!!!" she said jubilantly as everyone cheered.

Recently, the Raleigh News and Observer reported how a young woman was on a city bus when her water broke. The woman's labor had already significantly progressed by the time paramedics arrived. So the baby had to be delivered in the back of an ambulance on the scene. Having now resumed their route, the passengers of the bus later cheered when they heard over the driver's radio that the woman had delivered a little girl.

Is there anything more precious than the birth of a child? There was once a personal notice in the Dayton News that read: "The staff of LeRoy's Keepsake Diamond Center wishes to congratulate our office girl on the birth of her baby boy which weighed in at 18,176 carats."

It's hard to understand what might move a woman to throw away something so priceless.

Yet according to National Right to Life, during the year 2000, there were nearly 3,600 abortions per day in the U.S. The pro-life organization also sites the primary reasons why women say they have an abortion. It's interesting to note that most of the reasons given are primarily based on fear: the woman feels she's not ready for the responsibility (21%), she feels she can't afford the baby (21%), she has concerns about how the baby would change her life (16%), she has a relationship problem (12%), she feels she isn't mature enough (11%).

Fear can be a terrible thief. It can cause us to worry and fret, robbing us of our health. It can paralyze us, pilfering away many great opportunities. It can steal our peace of mind and fill us with dread. Moreover, it can produce horrific situations much greater than the ones feared.

That was certainly the case for Davina Chambers. WorldNetDaily reported last month that Chambers, 29, was pregnant with a fourth child when she decided to have an abortion. Chambers said she had some serious health issues and was deeply concerned about how that might affect the baby. "I started thinking about it," she said. "Here I am very ill, already with three children, and I was very depressed because of the medicine I was on."

But once Chambers had the abortion and returned home from a British hospital, she felt the need to go to the bathroom. While sitting on the toilet she said she felt something slip out of her as if she had just given birth. After examining what was in the toilet, she realized she was the victim of a botched abortion. She was looking straight into the face of her unborn child. "I feel like I'm going insane now," said Chambers.

Indeed, sometimes our fears create circumstances more dreadful than the situation we originally worried over. I've always thought it somewhat strange that one of the reasons given for the justification of legalized abortion is the fear of back alley abortions. We've now learned the number of back alley abortions claimed to occur in this country before Roe v. Wade were highly exaggerated. Dr. Bernard Nathason, former director of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (currently known as NARAL Pro-Choice America) says the figures of 5,000 to 10,000 back alley abortions a year were simply a fabrication. In fact, National Right to Life contends that according to statistics provided by the Centers for Disease Control, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, and the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the number of maternal deaths had significantly dropped before the legalization of abortion. Now that abortions are legal and performed in an "assembly line" fashion day after day, the risk of maternal deaths and injury to women seeking abortions is greater than it was when it was illegal.

It should also be noted that over 44 million precious lives have been destroyed since abortion was legalized in the U.S. in 1973. Fears regarding unplanned pregnancies have obviously created a holocaust unprecedented in human history. What is more, the Davina Chambers case clearly demonstrates abortion doesn't necessarily make matters easier for the mother and is never in the best interest of the child.

Horace Bushnell once said, "Every man's life is a plan of God." Indeed! That's why life is always sacred at any stage. Whether it begins in deprivation, complicated circumstances, poverty, sickness or health, it is to be received with joy and not fear. It is to be welcomed with cheers!!!